


of strawberries & cigarettes

by eyeronicmuch



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, M/M, jaehyun is a makeup artist, mentions of smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 23:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17610701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeronicmuch/pseuds/eyeronicmuch
Summary: jaehyun’s brushes not only paint sicheng in pretty colours, but also paint a smile on his face and maybe, warm his heart a little bit, too





	of strawberries & cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [razbluito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/razbluito/gifts).



> honestly this is a whole mess but my writers block is Extra Strong so ;; era i hope you like it regardless ily
> 
> also idk how the title turned into a troye sivan song djdjd

Sicheng took a deep inhale and huffed out an opaque cloud of smoke. He was sitting with his legs crossed, face stoic, almost as if he was a marble sculpture – perfectly carved but showing no signs of life except drawing the cigarette closer to his pink lips and back. 

Deep sighs, ragged breaths, Sicheng’s eyes slanted almost shut. He was wearing a woolen turtleneck that was rather uncomfortable, itching his neck and chest, pants too tight, but he couldn’t seem to care. He heard footsteps and people whisper-shouting in the changing room, the sounds loud and deafening, and drained the noise out. 

Another deep inhale. He spared a glance at the mirror before him and stared at his passive, disinterested expression, at his tired eyes and the eye bags covered in layers and layers of concealer, yet somehow still prominent. One might say he looked beautiful; cat-like features, big, knowing eyes, a delicate nose, plump, full lips and high cheekbones, but Sicheng would say he just looked like cheap porcelain – his hollowness concealed by eyeshadows and highlighters, concealers and eyeliners, his grey canvas of a being coloured subtly, appearing more saturated, and in the end, turning out anything but grey. He blew the smoke out of his chapped lips, fogging the clean mirror partially. Small, dark ashes fell from the cigarette, right onto his trousers, stinging a little. Sicheng swatted them away and waited for his name to be called over, as patient as ever. 

“Dong Sicheng,” a voice called for him, and Sicheng sighed, crumpling the cigarette and standing up. His manager, Kun, arrived exactly fifteen minutes before Sicheng had to go onto the podium, as always, but today he was with a new face in tow. “You’re on in ten. This is Jung Jaehyun, get acquainted before you go.” Kun’s expression is soft but his words are sharp, implying for Sicheng to be polite, as he leaves them to be when he gets called for. The other man, Jaehyun, stood awkwardly, hands in his pockets, a black bag draped over his shoulders, looking lost in the sea of unfamiliarity, eyes wandering.

“And who might you be?” Sicheng asked, not interested in the slightest. Naturally, he tone comes off sharp, even rude, and Jaehyun flinches a little. “Another model?”

Jaehyun shook his head, “No, no, i’m your new make-up artist.”

“Oh, I see. Alright.” Sicheng frowned slightly. He liked his old one, she was kind and didn’t ask much from him. He gave Jaehyun a once over running his eyes over his smooth, young face and down to his stylish boots, “With how many models have you worked before?”

Jaehyun scratched the back of his neck, a shy half-smile on his lips, “It’s my first time, actually.” He said, almost quietly.

Sicheng hummed and plopped down on the stool again. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Jaehyun is gentle, is what Sicheng observed. His brushes touch Sicheng as if he’s fragile glass, paints over his eyelids with pretty golds and dark crimsons with utmost care but with a twinge of uncertainty. He doesn’t speak, and Sicheng appreciates that. Instead Jaehyun looks at him, past him, with determination, applying pitch black eyeliner on the corner of his eyes smoothly. He applied lipgloss too softly for Sicheng’s liking, handles him too carefully. He pulled back moments later, giving Sicheng a hand mirror. He was done fast, but didn’t rush in the slightest. 

An aura of purity and even naivety surrounded Jaehyun, accompanied faded smells of strawberries from the man’s shampoo, and Sicheng only felt half bad knowing that it will be soon stripped away by the ugly dark side of the industry.

He looked into the mirror, and noticed how striking he looked – face painted in warm colours of the sunset, accenting his sharp eyes with oranges that complemented his outfit. A small smile etched itself onto Sicheng’s face. Jaehyun is good, he thought. He bowed lightly to the make-up artist, who looked satisfied with his work, and walked dreadfully up to the stage, up to the blinding cameras and to the hungry eyes of the public.

 

Working with Jaehyun feels nice. Sicheng thinks of it as a breath of fresh air in the suffocating grooming room. Jaehyun tries to make small talk out of politeness, but Sicheng can’t help but respond half-heartedly, even though he enjoys the artist’s presence more than he admits.

“How are you feeling today?” Jaehyun asked, smiling, and Sicheng, truthfully, was a bit taken aback; none of his previous make-up artists cared enough to ask, being too determined to complete their job for the day and go onto the next model, their next canvas. 

“Rather well, thank you, and you?” His tone is flat, eyes a bit wide with the earlier surprise, but they later crinkle into the something akin to an eye smile once Jaehyun responds eagerly with a dimple on his cheek. 

“I’m doing good! Yesterday I bought a new set of brushes, they are extra soft, even though quite pricey and…” Jaehyun blabbered on about nothing and everything, having warmed up to Sicheng more than just a little bit. But Sicheng hasn’t done the same yet, and Jaehyun’s sweet voice and soft pronunciation were hitting right into his pounding headache. 

“Dimples,” he hushed Jaehyun, “You’re too loud.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun stopped for a fraction of a second, dimple disappearing, “Sorry about that.” He continued to touch up on Sicheng’s cheeks, adding a pale pink with his fluffy brush, seemingly not affected.

Sicheng walked out with pink hues of cotton candy skies adorning his face, and he couldn’t help but think that only Jaehyun makes him look prettier, more alive, than anyone ever could.

 

“How are things with Jaehyun going?” Kun wondered, in between their hectic schedules. 

“Good,” is all that Sicheng replied, trying on jackets for the shop’s he’s modeling for recent collection. “He’s really good. I like him. His positivity.”

“Is that so? He thinks you don’t.”

Sicheng frowns, reaching out for a pack of cigarettes, and then for a lighter, not knowing what to say. The flame flickered after the second try, and Sicheng felt relaxing second by second breathing the familiar and comforting scent of smoke.

“Jaehyun is a nice guy, I don’t want you to scare him off. It would be a shame if he quit, it hasn’t even been two months.”

“It would.”

Kun sighed, “Your left eye is smudged, we need to touch it up a bit before the shoot. Let me call Jaehyun over.”

The model played with the cigarette between his long fingers, and continued to do so even as the smoke died out and as a familiar artist’s face appeared and corrected the wing, tracing over his eyelid with a cold eyeliner. 

Jaehyun’s calm, deep eyes looked deeper, and he himself was frowning a little bit. 

“You should stop smoking.”

“I know.”

“It’s really not good for your health.”

“Dimples, I know.”

Jaehyun frowned further. “I have a name.” His eyebrows were furrowed, a mixed expression on his face, and he looked almost like a little kitten.

Sicheng chuckled slightly, something deep resonating throughout his chest . “I know that too.”

“Hey, that’s the first time i’ve ever heard you laugh, or seen you smile, for that matter.” Jaehyun cracked a smile of his own, a smile that Sicheng found contagious, and he couldn’t grasp any words to describe how beautiful it looked on Jaehyun’s handsome face. 

“You should do that more often, you look much more prettier with it. It’s such a nice smile.”

And no concealer could hide the growing blush on the high of Sicheng’s cheeks.

 

With each day, with each gentle brushstroke of Jaehyun’s strong, careful arms against his face that were ever so soft, Sicheng felt something inside him stir quietly, not but unpleasantly. He let Jaehyun ramble despite his headaches, let him apply glitter onto his eyelids even though he hates a lot, let him scold him for reeking of cigarettes over perfumes, not even knowing why. Jaehyun felt like a bleak of sunlight in Sicheng’s grey, depressing winter– something so rare and so valuable, something so wished for but so evanescent. 

“Glitter looks so so nice on you,” Jaehyun comments, voice as smooth as the finest honey, and Sicheng finds it so pleasant to the ear, so calming and strangely comforting, “gold really suits you best.”

Hearing such words made Sicheng awfully shy; he’s heard compliments throughout his whole life, but these simple words by a simple make-up artist did something to his insides. He instinctively reached for a cigarette. 

“No smoking.” Jaehyun yanked the little soul-sucker away, far from Sicheng’s reach. 

“But–”

“Don’t move, please, you’ll mess up your hair.”  
Sicheng huffs. “What’s it to you what habits I have?”

“I care, simply,” Jaehyun applied more hair gel to tame Sicheng’s stay strands of burgundy hair, combing it to the left.

The model looked up at him. “Why?”

But Jaehyun didn’t answer, he only smiled that chest-tightening smile and left Sicheng swimming in questions.

“You’re all good.”

Sicheng looked at himself. Jaehyun was right, gold did look good on him, it glimmered brighter than the sun rays in the morning, resembled the chaotic lights reflected onto the surface of the summer sea.

It was a particularly hectic week, and the model felt drowning and suffocating in stress that weaved around him from head to toe and didn’t let him breathe. Sicheng craved for his coping mechanism, a pack of Marlboro’s, but suppressed the need down as hard as he could. His hand turned on an electronic cigarette instead, with the taste of apples and fruit and everything sweet, but it didn’t do much to relieve tension, in fact, it didn’t do anything at all. To Sicheng it was like a placebo effect, or maybe he craved for familiarity in the ashes and the darkness of his usual smokes. The electronic cigarette was light and filtered, and Sicheng needed something heavy and destructively effective. He could give in into his needs any moment, so to say, but a deep voice at the back of his head reminded him not to. Sicheng resisted. White smoke left his lips, leaving a faint smell of artificial fruit lingering in the air. 

“My boss wants your next photoshoot to be with Ten. He’s still deciding on the theme, but he expects a positive answer.” Kun informed Sicheng one rainy afternoon. 

“Ten?” Sicheng asked, half listening to Kun, half listening to the tiny droplets beat irregularly against the window in the room. 

Sicheng heard of him. Ten was a model from Thailand of popular demand, always wanted and always booked. Ten was young, successful, charming, and Sicheng would be honoured to stand on the same podium as him. 

Seeing as Sicheng’s eyes unknowingly lit up, Kun nodded. “I take that as a yes.”

Ten was even more striking up close. Amiable and very likable, with a blinding smile and cheerful eyes, and Sicheng envied him partly for his enthusiasm, ebullience and passion that he once was overflowing with himself, but even then, Sicheng enjoyed working with him a lot despite their language barrier. Sicheng barely grasped the basics of English and Ten didn’t speak Mandarin; hand gestures did the thing, for most of the part, but for the other part Jaehyun was their translator. 

“Ten says he was glad to finally meet you, and that it would be his pleasure to work with you again.” Jaehyun relayed after flashes from the cameras have blinded them enough, and Sicheng felt Ten’s fox-like eyes looking expectantly at him. “Likewise,” He replied, awkwardly quirking his lips up. 

Two stylists hovered around Sicheng as they took off his make-up, rubbing away the turquoises and the lilacs around his eyes and the pale pink on his lips. Sicheng looked at his reflection in the mirror – he looked fuller now, less pale. His eye bags were still there, but not as purple, and his eyes flickered with a tiny spark that was put out. Sicheng didn’t even realize how Jaehyun was a flame that Sicheng missed in his life, that filled his emptiness up with more than just the needed warmth.

Sicheng brooded over his thoughts whilst Jaehyun occupied himself by chatting with the Thai model about things Sicheng couldn’t understand. Ten was loud and boisterous, very attractive, but Sicheng’s eyes glued himself only to his make-up artist, his chestnut hair that fell over his alluring eyes, his full cheeks and sincere smiles, and the dimples that Sicheng grew to adore. Sicheng’s gaze focused on Jaehyun’s reddening ears and shy grins as Ten complimented his artwork, and the model could easily tell that Ten was flirting. 

For reasons unknown, Sicheng didn’t like the ugly feeling that sizzled in his chest upon the sight. He shouldn’t care, it shouldn’t matter to him, nothing should matter to him, but it did. It was then, that realized he wished for the bleak dissipating his greys not to be ephemeral. He felt cold, smoke being the only thing that could warm his insides and melt his freezing heart. 

Ten left a week later with cheeky smiles and with hopes of returning soon, nudging Jaehyun with knowing glances that the latter seemed to avoid. Sicheng shook the model’s bony hand, glad to have made an acquaintance, possibly even a friend.

 

The shoot was a success, as it was expected to be. Sicheng got flooded with interviews and modeling contracts, more offers and sponsorships. Kun was delighted, Jaehyun even more. Sicheng’s career soared, and they celebrated the occasion in a closed-off, dimly lit bar, far away from the paparazzi. Sicheng recognized his co-workers, other models he crossed paths with, more employees. The music was loud, as loud as his beating heart, loud against the deafening silence of the night. 

Sicheng sat down on a bar stool, a shot of whiskey in his hands. Minutes later Jaehyun slid up next to him, looking so familiar yet so different, with his hair styled up and sleeved of his shirt rolled up, which Sicheng found much more attractive for some reason. The make-up artist looked quite serious, wearing an expression Sicheng never saw on his features, not even when Jaehyun was concentrated on his eyeshadows and palettes, but the seriousness broke with Jaehyun’s growing smile and with a clank of their glasses, as cheeks grew redder and the atmosphere felt hotter, and Sicheng felt too enamoured by the man before him– by his stares and smiled directed only at him.

“You look better without make-up.” Jaehyun said, out of the blue, and Sicheng laughed whole-heatedly at the irony. A model and a make-up artist, a canvas and a painter, one who is painted and one who paints. He found it funny, to hear from a painter that the canvas should be left blank. To leave the paper white and untouched.

But Jaehyun’s words were sincere, they always were, and Sicheng faltered for a moment under the man’s intense gaze, a gaze he couldn’t decipher at all. 

“Thank you,” is all he said, all he could say at that particular moment, feeling too open and suddenly too shy because of the way Jaehyun looks at him almost adoringly, almost lovingly. It’s too much to take in the small space of the bar.

“I need a breather,” Sicheng deadpanned, feeling hot. He flickered his custom-made zippo, steadying himself with rings of clouded air.

Jaehyun wasn’t pleased. “I thought you stopped.”

“Old habits die hard. I’m weak-willed.” Sicheng inhaled a bit too deeply, a bit too nervously.

“I noticed you usually smoke when you stress. What are you stressed about?” He sounded concerned, and usually, Sicheng would get irritated at such gestures that seemed almost mocking, but not with Jaehyun. 

“I– I don’t know.” About everything and nothing, about his future, his present, his past, but mostly Jaehyun. His warmness and his awkwardness, his skilled hands and his beautiful make-up looks, his bright being lighting up Sicheng’s dull days. His feelings, Jaehyun’s feelings. Their relationship – everything.

Jaehyun moved closer and closer. “What’s so good about smoking anyways?” There was a frown ruining his handsome face, a frown that the model wanted to wipe off.

“Nothing.” Sicheng nonchalantly replied, even though his arm trembled slightly at the proximity. “Never tried?”

Jaehyun shook his head slowly.

“Would you like to?”

“Maybe.” Jaehyun sounded unsure.

“Alright.” Sicheng sucked in a breath, detached his cigarette with glimmering eyes. He twirled the bud over, and Jaehyun reached out to take it, but the model moved it closer to himself, and when Jaehyun leaned in, Sicheng yanked him by the shirt and covered his lips with his own. Jaehyun squeaked inaudibly, but nonetheless closed his eyes shut, the tension in his shoulders dissipating, and Sicheng let the bud fall onto the floor as he grabbed Jaehyun’s face with both of his palms and deepened the kiss. He felt dimples form under his fingers, felt Jaehyun smiling, and he himself warm, so so warm, and felt so many things at once.

Jaehyun tasted of strawberry cocktails– sweet and addictive, and Sicheng couldn’t get enough of it. Jaehyun kissed him back slow and gentle, and Sicheng felt himself grow pliant at the overwhelming sweetness.

After what seemed to be a few frozen heartbeats the make-up artist pulled back, out of breath. Sicheng gazed at his disheveled state and slightly swollen lips. His face was burning a deep red, and Sicheng knew his own was bright red too.

“So, how do you like cigarettes?” He almost smirked.

Jaehyun chuckled, quietly but loud enough only for the model to hear. “I don’t in the slightest, but, I do like you.”

“What a coincidence,” Sicheng expressed, full of mirth and something he had never felt before, eyes turning into moon crescents, lighting up with an array of stars. He took Jaehyun gently by his face, traced over his wide eyes, flat nose and stopped, glaze flickering over to his lips he really wanted to capture over and over again with his own. “I happen to like you too.”

As the faintness of the strawberries and cigarettes mixed together into something resembling a colourful pastiche, he leaned in again, and again, and again.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twt: eyeronicmuch


End file.
